Why do people think if you stop polluting the earth, it will reduce anthropogenic global warming?

Question

This is so ridiculous, throwing a empty plastic bag on the ground doesn't create greenhouse gasses. Nor does not recycling make it hotter. Pollution and greenhouse gasses are 2 different things.

Answer 1

"Nor does not recycling make it hotter."

Awesome use of the double negative.

Oh yeah, and some people are really stupid, that's why.

Answer 2

littering is not the only form of pollution.

but I don't think anything anyone says on here is going to make a difference as far as you're concerned.

I really hope you're young and ignorant. at least then you might grow up.

Answer 3

CO2 is actually toxic. If you are trapped in a room with only CO2, you will die.

Answer 4

Your being close-minded and ignorant. Not to be mean but do you really think that you are right and all the millions or people against global warming are wrong. Do some research first if you are interested.

Answer 5

This depends on what your definition of polluting is, of course. You can pollute my environment with profanity and other such things- this doesn't mean that you're polluting with chemicals or gasses.

Anthropogenic effects, however are caused by a very wide array of problems. Throwing a plastic bag on the ground isn't going to kill the planet, but the plastic itself will not disintegrate for at least 100 years. I have always held the belief that we prefer to keep our trash out of view because it is an eyesore...a constant reminder of what we are doing.

Personally, I'm more interested in why you feel the need to call people derogatory names when you're supposedly asking a serious question on a message board.

Answer 6

I agree with you, it is important to identify and separate the two issues. You can be all for ceasing pollution of the earth, but not support claims of climate change. The important distinguishing feature is that of the thermal impact of anthropogenic CO2 release. Many scientifically researched and supported graphs indicate that there is in fact no corellation between increases in CO2 levels in the atmosphere and temperature increases.

The main bodies of storage for CO2 in the world are the oceans. Oceans hold roughly 95% of the CO2 in the world, and as natural climate variations cause heating of the oceans, there is a release of CO2 into the atmosphere, which doesn't seem to have any impact on global temperature levels. In fact, the major retainer of heat in the atmosphere is H2O, or water vapor.

A scientific deduction from the information just mentioned would conclude that in fact the major release of CO2 comes from the oceans, and a minimal amount is anthropogenically released. This is put into perspective when you realise also that most scientifically documented data on CO2 and temperature relations finds that there is no corellation between temperature increases and atmospheric CO2 levels.

A last note for "Cliffy", who stated that CO2 was toxic, and will kill you if it is the only thing present in a room that you're in. The reason that only CO2 present would cause death is because there would be no isolated O2 in the room, the two oxygen atoms bond with the carbon atom in the respiration process to form CO2, which can't be used in the respiration process, i.e. we need oxygen to survive. We could have nothing but nitrogen gas in a room and we would still die.

Answer 7

Actually some recycling does have an impact.

Recycling aluminum and glass saves a major amount of energy.  Less energy used, less greenhouse gases.

By the way CO2 IS a pollutant.  "Pollutant" is a legal term, not a technical one.  The Supreme Court says CO2 is a pollutant.  Since this is a legal issue, they get to win.

Answer 8

Actually air pollution has a dimming effect which causes cooling, which is why cars aren't a big source of warming, although the CO2 they produce does remain in the atmosphere for a long time. Littering isn't a cause of warming but not recycling cans and plastic does require resources to produce a new one while the trash sits in a landfill.

Some of the links you provided are somewhat dated, http://www.aproundtable only refers to the 2001 IPCC report, not the 2007 report. The second argument on their page is the most compelling argument they have, the tropical troposphere is not heating as the IPCC models predict, which is why they now call it climate change instead of global warming. The IPCC models can't even accurately predict PAST temperatures, so they're hardly reliable for modeling temp 100 years in the future.

Heat Island effect on surface monitoring stations means that all urban station data is suspect since it appears that the data is not corrected for that effect. If anything, NASA GISS massages the data in undisclosed ways until they fit the curve and numbers they want. Hardly objective observation, see the links below for details. If you look at satellite data and rural stations you find there is little if any warming.

The fact that the IPCC discounts the impact of solar activity on warming is laughable beyond belief since without that input life on Earth would be impossible. Every bit of CO2 we release was naturally produced and stored as hydrocarbons and as you state it's not pollution, it's a gas essential for most plant growth and life on Earth.

The heating caused by CO2 is so tiny the IPCC needs to make all kinds of assumptions about magnifying effects, ignore prior hot and cool periods such as the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age so they can claim it's hotter than it's been in 1000s of years, and use flawed models to predict the future temp. They still rely on Mann's hockey stick graph, years after it was debunked and proven to be fatally flawed because it gives them a nice straight-line temp increase.  CO2 is absorbed by the ocean and plants and the calculation of heating from CO2 in the real world is next to impossible, yet they make predictions all the time.

We'll be a century into the next ice age before they'd admit they are wrong. Unfortunately, we'll also be cold and poor by then since the cost of current legislation is predicted to be $2.8 trillion a year by 2050, for a reduction in CO2 emissions of 25 ppm by 2098.

**edit

Then water is toxic, too, since you'd drown in a room full of water. CO2 is not toxic unless it displaces the oxygen you need to breathe, unlike carbon monoxide which will replace the oxygen in your lungs and cause you to die at much lower levels than required for CO2 saturation.

Answer 9

Throwing an empty plastic bag on the ground is littering, not polluting. Although plastic bags do take 1000 years to decompose, which is a different problem. Air pollution is the main problem here. When factories, cars etc. release carbon emissions into the air it increases the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases trap heat inside the atmosphere. So when more greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, or water vapour) are released into the atmosphere, more heat will be trapped making the earth's average temperature rise. Note: Just because littering does not have a large effect on climate change should it be accepted. It is never socially acceptable to just throw things on the ground.